Shredding my nice tidy two-column lists

Bless our God, who holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip. Psalm 66:8

I call with my whole heart; answer me, O LORD, that I may keep Your statues. Psalm 119:145

I am bound by the vow I made to you, O God; I will present to You thank-offerings. For You have rescued my soul from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living. Psalm 56:11-12

The LORD has pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who wait for His gracious favor. Psalm 147:12

And you, little child, have come from on high to visit us, to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow dark as death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79

What I desire: I desire to do Your will O Lord, I desire to always do Your will, and I desire to do all of Your will. And when I do not desire this, give me the grace to do so.

Ignatius’ Principle 23: My only desire and my one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me.

…the free choice to give up the self produces, as it were, the free self, the authentic person. But it is a choice that must constantly be remade in every subsequent choice…this perpetual re-choosing of Christ is the great paradox and challenge the Christian faith. –Inchausti, Subversive Orthodoxy

Choices. Decisions. Love. Obedience. Faithfulness. Consequences.

In their original context, the Ignatian Exercises were given to those who had to make an election, most often for those who were deciding whether they would pursue the life in the Jesuit society. The Spiritual Exercises were designed to bring the retreatant to a place of mature discernment so that the best decision was made.

One idea is that there are times of Boundaries or seasons of transition, when one phase of life is coming to an end and another is beginning. Often, what lies ahead is not clearly seen. The Boundary time of life is always a time of discernment and decision-making.

Ignatius wants all of our choices to be made in light of the strong desire to always move farther along the road toward my chief end of loving God and serving His purposes in the world, for the praise of His greater glory.

Our natural human inclination, when it comes to choices is–what is in it for me? What do I get out of this? We make our lists of pros and cons and tally up the columns to see where we can get the best deal. Ignatius wants to counter that with his First Principle and Foundation and help me come to the place of indifference where you choose whatever is most conducive to the purposes and plans of God, and in this way I move toward my chief end. If that chief end means I must decrease so another can increase, then that is the way it is and will be. Ignatius wants me to have the Lord’s Prayer as my heartbeat, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

There are times when we make certain core choices which turn us away from certain pathways and set us on other pathways. Some of these choices are “defining moment” choices. Still, once made, they must be remade, rechosen in subsequent choices. If we neglect to continue making daily “rechoosings” then our earlier defining choice diminishes. There are vital spiritual choices each person makes that must be remembered, celebrated and reaffirmed on a regular basis. In this way, we move into the maturity and fullness of the first choice.

Imagine having a conversation with Christ as He looks into your eyes and says, “What you prefer is not my will for you. Instead, my will for you is that you pursue the direction that you are least interested in.” As you are imagining this conversation, what do you feel as Christ says this to you? What do you say as you look back at Christ? -Rice

Here I am, I have come…I desire to do Your will, O my God; your law is written in my heart.

Prayer: Holy Father, creator and sustaining wisdom of all that is, both in heaven and on earth, take from me those thoughts, actions and objects that are hurtful. Give me instead those things that are profitable for me an all who seek rightly to praise you. I ask this grace in the company of all believers and through the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who is, with You and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Out of the dark, tender life unfurls

My God whose ways and thoughts are higher than my ways and thoughts.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say? Luke 6:46

What I desire: To live before God with true freedom.

Ignatius understands “indifference” to be the condition of balance, equilibrium, equipoise, unbiased, unprejudiced, and without partiality. He doesn’t us to simply leave something behind, but find something–the person of Jesus Christ. Indifference means we are so consumed by love of Christ (which is actually Christ’s love for us) that we are free of all else.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.

One of the biggest things, or perhaps The Thing of the past two months, has been this peeling off of the Eustace dragon-hide layers. With the hope that it will leave me very tender to those still stirrings in my heart that I have come to recognize as His voice.

And in this time of deafening silence, my very ears are ringing with the quiet, may I be deaf to The Other Voices and mute to my desires and only looking full in His wonderful face.

Yes, and emptiness itself can birth the fullness of grace because in the emptiness we have the opportunity to turn to God, the only begetter of grace, and there find all the fullness of joy.

Yes, Father, You long to transfigure all,n o matter how long it takes. You long to transfigure all.

Because eucharisteo is how Jesus, at the Last Supper, showed us how to transfigure all things–take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness.  -Voskamp

Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?

My God whose ways and thoughts are higher than my ways and thoughts.

What I desire: To live before God with true freedom that enables me to always desire more for His greater glory and then to know and to choose the way that is most useful for my chief end, to bring glory to God and enjoy Him forever.

I have surrendered to Your desires

May this offering go up to the sky

Peace hallelujah, and be multiplied.

The freedom that Ignatius speaks of, and sought after with all heart, soul, and mind, is not found in wealth or health or relationships. Rather it can be found in the most dank (the students’ favorite vocabulary word from Steinbeck) prison, articulated by Paul and his triumphant Rejoice in all things, I say it again rejoice. And in Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago: Do not pursue what is illusory–property and position. Live with strong superiority over life–don’t be afraid of misfortune and do not yearn for happiness; it is after all, the same: the bitter never lasts forever, and the sweet news never fills the cup to overflowing.

I stare this truth in the face.

One thing about writing it all down, this manna for the day, this daily “What is it?” is that I possess documentation of the transitory nature of both happiness and sorrow, the up and down of crashing waves to the murky depths and then being lifted up into the bright sunlight. Yet the ship holds its course. There is an image of this in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as the children head east to Aslan’s land. While Lucy and Edmund quickly found their sailor legs and strode the deck confidently and clambered up the ropes and let the sea wind and sea salt splash in their uplifted faces, Eustace Scrubb (who almost deserved that name) lay in his bunk bed, moaning with sea sickness. Yet ‘twas the same sea.

Ignatius says, God is not interested in being the genie who attends to all my wants, needs and desires as I define them; but God is interested in transforming my desires and goals so they are now what He wants for me, no matter how at odds they may be with my current working set of operating principles for life.

Voskamp asks this question as well, when her seven-year-old son did not lose his hand when it went through a fan blade circulating air for hundreds of sows, while just down the street, the very same afternoon, a thirteen-year-old Mennonite boy dies, crushing his momma’s heart. Where is God’s grace in that situation? In both situations? In all situations?

But what perspective sees good in dead farm boys, good in a little girl crushed under tires of a truck right in front of her mother’s eyes, good in a brother-in-law who buries his first two sons in the space of nineteen months–and all the heinous crimes and all the weeping agony and all the scalding burn of this world?

I feel Him hold me–a flailing child tired in Father’s arms.

And I can hear Him soothe soft, “Are your ways My ways, child? Can you eat my manna, sustain on My mystery? Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world–because My flame of love for you can never, ever be quenched?

And the little fuzzy clock radio clicked on this morning: No I never walk alone.

Now I feel the sacred flame

21 de septiembre, 2014

An invitation to come and rest. Two weeks ago Cameron sent me this invitation, and it has been whispering in my ear, an invitation.

Be at rest, my soul,
O blessed secret of the true life that glorifies the Lord:
Not always does the busiest soul best serve him, but he that rests upon his faithful word.
Be at rest, let not your heart be rippled,
For tiny wavelets mar the image fair,
Which the still pool reflects of heaven's glory-and this the image he would have you bear.
Be at rest, my soul, for rest is service,
To the still heart God does his secrets tell...
For God is rest, and where he dwells is stillness,
And they who dwell in Him, His rest will share.
And what will meet the deep unrest around you,
But the calm peace of God that filled his breast?
For still a living Voice calls to the weary,
From Him who said, "come unto me and rest."

As I begin Invitations, a path of spiritual formation built on Ignatius’ Exercises, there is a warning by the author Brian Rice. I use the word invitation to this volume of Exercises, for God does invite us to freely choose what He holds to to us. Still, the word invitation may be too “weak” of a word, for God’s invitations often come as summons. A summons has more “weight” and “substance” than an invitation. A summons has the sense of “one dare not refuse to answer” the summons. Perhaps we should understand it this way. God first gives us an invitation. If we resist His invitations, the persistent, sovereign God reissues the invitation to us as a summons that has greater urgency. If we continue to resist His summons, we may soon discover that the summons is now a command that has the promise of blessing and the warning of unwanted consequences should the command be ignored.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Mercy. Mercy looks a lot like a sunlit jungle garden with treetop birds calling back and forth to each other, and Spanish love songs playing dimly in the background. Was it only four days ago that I lay on the bedroom floor sobbing my heart out without hope?

Coming to an end of self.

Spiritual exercises which have as their purpose the conquest of self. Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our LORD. Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life. The same holds for all other things. -Ignatius

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

What I desire: To have a “largeness of heart” toward my Lord God. To have a strong readiness and wide-openness toward Christ and His purposes.

Prayer: Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O Lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.

My liberty. My memory. Memories. My understanding. My entire will. Take Lord, I return them. All is Thine. Dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. A wide-openness toward Christ and His purposes: That God will do all that He has promised.

This is a disposition of the heart that has enormous trust toward God, strong hope and faith in God and which is willing to make a deep surrender to God.

Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out!

Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been His counselor?

Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?

For from Him and through Him and in Him are all things.

To Him be the glory forever! Amen. Romans 11:33-36

My smart little google brain knows where I am, and all of my searching brings up Spanish.

How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out. Who could have imagined the path begun in the dusty play of Ejido Cuernavaca tracing to this quiet spot in Antigua, Guatemala? And yet. And yet. From the beginning of time, by which He is not bound.

Stand back.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Most of all I am struck by the tremendous mercy of God, reaching into my sinful soul, and ripping out self. What mercy, what grace to be saved from oneself.

All to Jesus I surrender

All to Him I freely give

I will ever love and trust Him

And in His presence I will live

I surrender all, I surrender all.